His view
of it was not an educational one: he was no philosopher, nor trained
observer. He remembered London--to her the capital of the world--
chiefly by its restaurants, Cairo on account of its execrable golf-
links. He lived only to enjoy himself. His view was that of a boy,
hearty and healthy and seeking only excitement and mischief. She had
heard his tales of his brief career at Harvard, of the reunions at
Henry's American bar, of the Futurity, the Suburban, the Grand Prix,
of a yachting cruise which apparently had encountered every form of
adventure, from the rescuing of a stranded opera-company to the
ramming of a slaver's dhow. The regret with which he spoke of these
free days, which was the regret of an exile marooned upon a desert
island, excited all her sympathy for an ill she had never known. His
discourteous scorn of the social pleasures of the post, from which
she herself was excluded, rilled her with speculation. If he could
forego these functions, how full and gay she argued his former life
must have been. His attitude helped her to bear the deprivations more
easily. And she, as a loyal child of the army, liked him also because
he was no "cracker-box" captain, but a fighter, who had fought with
no morbid ideas as to the rights or wrongs of the cause, but for the
fun of fighting.
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